117: Side effects of "singing stones" and the annoyance of "human antennae"

After the initial excitement and adaptation period, life in Homeland gradually settled into a state of superficial calm and routine. Excellence's new studio became his favorite "paradise," where he spent most of his days, either buried in blueprints and formulas or assembling his inspired hand-crafted devices. Su Mu and Evelyn's meticulous and thoughtful companionship ensured that his rehabilitation, cultural studies, and daily life were all orderly. The air in the valley was fresh, the scenery pleasant, and everything seemed harmonious and full of hope.

However, this calm was soon shattered by a series of subtle yet increasingly obvious "side effects." The source of these changes seemed to point to the metal box brought back from the Feiying Stream Cave, especially the strange, faintly glowing mineral stones that Excellence called the "singing stones." Ever since he placed these minerals in the display cabinet in his studio (and later often took them out to examine them), some extraordinary phenomena began to occur around him.

The first change was an anomaly in the realm of sleep. Excellence's past dreams were mostly reconstructions of memory fragments or vague, fantastic scenes. But now, his dreams had become unprecedentedly clear, coherent, and filled with unimaginable detail, as if he wasn't dreaming but personally experiencing strange adventures.

He dreamed of walking through a forest he had never seen before, where the trees emitted a soft blue-green light, the moss underfoot felt as soft as velvet, and the air was filled with a sweet, unfamiliar floral scent. He could even "feel" the subtle temperature changes created as light passed through the translucent leaves.

He dreamed of floating in the boundless depths of space, surrounded by slowly rotating nebulae and the brilliant Milky Way. Without a spacesuit, he felt no cold or suffocation; instead, he could "hear" a grand and harmonious "music"—a cosmic symphony woven from the roar of stellar fusion, the rhythm of planetary orbits, and the deep chords rippling out from distant gravitational waves.

The time that left him speechless upon waking was when he dreamed he had become a solid planet, orbiting a massive star. He had to meticulously maintain his orbit, avoid impacts from passing asteroid belt fragments, and "sense" the slow flow of magma beneath his crust and the subtle changes in his magnetic field. After a whole night, he felt sore all over, as if he had truly engaged in an all-night interstellar marathon and geological movement.

These dreams were so vivid that he often needed several minutes after waking up to confirm he was back in reality. Initially, he found it novel and interesting, but as time went on, this high-quality (or rather, high-load) sleep did not bring abundant energy. Instead, it often left him feeling a deep, profound exhaustion during the day, as if his brain had processed an excessive amount of information overnight.

Second was the overload of his sensory system. Excellence found that his five senses had become abnormally acute, bordering on being out of control. This acuteness did not translate to clearer discrimination, but rather to the defenseless reception of massive amounts of subtle environmental information that was normally ignored.

Hearing: He could clearly hear the extremely faint yet distinctly layered "tap" sound of a dewdrop, condensed on the tip of a leaf dozens of meters away, breaking surface tension and falling onto the leaf below; he could distinguish the varying low hums emitted by instruments running in different rooms and on different floors; he could even capture the ever-changing spectrum of whistling sounds produced by the wind passing through different shaped rock crevices in the valley. These sounds mixed together like a perpetually open, high-volume natural recording studio, leaving him dizzy and unable to concentrate.

Sight: His Perception of light and color was also abnormal. He could discern the extremely subtle color temperature differences produced by morning, noon, and evening sunlight hitting the same object (differences ordinary people could barely distinguish); he could notice the subtle changes in the contours of distant mountains caused by light refraction through air of varying humidity; sometimes, he even felt that the edges of stationary objects seemed to be subtly "flowing," as if he could see the trajectories of photons colliding in the air. The input of excessive visual information often caused his vision to blur and resulted in mild dizziness.

Somatosensory: Even more mystical, he sometimes experienced a vague "somatosensory extension." While sitting still, he could faintly "feel" the almost immeasurable, subtle vibrations generated deep beneath the earth by the colossal tectonic plates slowly squeezing and moving against each other; before a sudden change in weather, he could sense the accumulating shifts in atmospheric charge and pressure, causing a slight tingling sensation on his skin.

This comprehensive sensory overload made Excellence miserable. He frequently suffered from headaches and scattered concentration, feeling as if his brain had become an old computer with insufficient memory, forced to run countless high-definition video and audio files simultaneously. To function normally, he had to rely on professional noise-canceling earplugs and light-blocking sunglasses provided by Su Mu, attempting to physically isolate himself from the excessive information input.

What troubled and terrified Excellence the most was a "signal reception" experience that he couldn't accurately describe but knew was real. He felt as if he had become a "Human Antenna" that couldn't be turned off and was constantly out of tune, inadvertently receiving "signals" of unknown origin and inexplicable meaning. This phenomenon was especially pronounced during full moons, periods of intense solar activity, or drastic weather changes.

These "signals" were not electromagnetic waves in the traditional sense, but more like a flow of information—a mixture of sound, image, and sensation—that acted directly upon his consciousness. They were chaotic and varied in intensity:

Sometimes, a strange chirp from an unknown bird courting in the distant mountains would be automatically "translated" in his mind into an off-key yet exceptionally persistent love song, looping endlessly and driving him frantic.

Sometimes, the faint electromagnetic leakage produced by a high-precision instrument during calibration or experimentation in the adjacent research building would transform in his Perception into the noise of thousands of bees buzzing collectively by his ear, making him restless.

The most severe instance occurred on a sultry afternoon when he suddenly felt a palpitation and an inexplicable panic. Immediately afterward, a massive weather map seemed to unfold in his mind—he "heard" the continuous lightning precursors and the low rumble of thunder generated by the violent friction of cloud layers inside a Supercell Thunderstorm brewing hundreds of kilometers away. He could even "feel" the gathering of destructive energy and the suppression before the outburst. This immersive experience lasted the entire afternoon, leaving him pale with fright, convinced he was about to be struck by lightning, his heart pounding uncontrollably. Afterward, he was as weak as if he had recovered from a serious illness.

"Squad Leader! Sister Evelyn! Help me!" Excellence finally broke down, pleading tearfully to the two people he trusted most, his face etched with distress and panic. "Is my brain really breaking down? It's buzzing all day long, like a vegetable market and a symphony orchestra moved in! If this keeps up, forget building a Cosmic Music Player, I'm going to turn into a short-circuited, smoking, broken radio myself!"

Seeing Excellence looking so pitiful, as if he might collapse at any moment, Su Mu felt terribly sorry for him. She quickly patted his back gently, comforting him in a soft voice, much like soothing a frightened small animal: "Don't talk nonsense, don't scare yourself! Maybe it's just that you just moved to a new place and haven't acclimatized, plus those stones... well... they have a special energy field that's made your senses temporarily oversensitive. It's okay, you'll adapt slowly." In private, she seriously discussed with Evelyn whether they should remove those stones of unknown origin from Excellence's studio to prevent continuous harm.

However, Evelyn held a different view. Based on her scientific rigor and her understanding of Excellence's unique nature, she did not jump to conclusions. She used advanced Bio-Energy Field Monitoring Equipment within Homeland to secretly monitor Excellence's physiological state for several consecutive days whenever these "symptoms" appeared.

The monitoring results were unexpected. Data showed that when Excellence complained about “signal overload,” the energy field around his body was indeed abnormally active, and his brainwave patterns exhibited highly complex and synchronized characteristics. However, this activity was not chaotic and disordered interference, but rather a high-load state under multi-band information resonance. More importantly, the monitoring did not detect any harmful radiation or indicators of mental pollution; instead, there were signs of a tendency towards a certain intrinsic harmony and order.

Evelyn, combining her understanding of some early fringe theories of The Foundation (such as "morphogenetic resonance," "global consciousness field," and other hypotheses not recognized by mainstream science), proposed a bold conjecture: this might not be simple negative interference, but rather Excellence's unique consciousness structure undergoing a deep, subconscious "calibration" and "connection" with a natural environmental information field carried by or resonating with those strange ores (possibly a superposition of complex factors like Earth's magnetic field, cosmic rays, and collective biological subconscious).

"This could be both a severe challenge and an unprecedented opportunity for him," Evelyn analyzed seriously to Su Mu. "His brain, this 'super biological computer' far exceeding ordinary people, is being forced to learn how to identify, process, filter, and understand this surging, massive amount of subconscious or extrasensory information. If we now, out of fear, forcibly isolate him from this 'signal source,' it would be like putting a life jacket on a child learning to swim and never letting them take it off, potentially interrupting this crucial adaptation and evolution process, and even leading to the degradation or distortion of his Perception abilities."

Evelyn suggested that instead of avoiding it, they should actively guide and help. "We should become his 'signal filter' and 'emotional stabilizer,' helping him learn how to consciously control and manage this 'extrasensory perception,' teaching him to distinguish useful information from useless noise, just like teaching someone how to avoid information anxiety when using the internet."

Although Su Mu only half-understood the profound theories Evelyn mentioned, she could feel the sincerity in Evelyn's words and her concern for Excellence. She recalled Excellence's repeated displays of potential in crises and realized that constant protection might not be the best option. Ultimately, she chose to trust Evelyn's judgment. The two reached a consensus: to jointly help Excellence through this special adaptation period.

So, Su Mu and Evelyn, according to their respective strengths, played different support roles.

Su Mu became Excellence's "down-to-earth mentor" and "sensory restarter." When Excellence was overwhelmed by information and dizzy, Su Mu wouldn't lecture him; instead, she would directly take his hand and say, "Come on, Excellence, stop thinking! Let's go with the Squad Leader to see if our tomatoes in the vegetable garden are ripe!" Or, "Come on, come on, forget about those buzzing sounds, let's do the eighth set of broadcast gymnastics together, stretch out, and shake off all the bad luck!" She used the most simple, physical activities—gardening, watering, walking, doing exercises, and even preparing simple meals together—to forcibly pull Excellence's attention back to the real world, using physical fatigue and simple labor to "restart" his overloaded brain nervous system, helping him regain a sense of being grounded.

Evelyn, on the other hand, played the role of a "technical coach." She taught Excellence some basic Mindfulness meditation and attention focusing techniques. She instructed Excellence that when he felt interference, instead of resisting or trying to understand every "signal," he should first close his eyes, focus his attention on his breathing, and feel the airflow entering and leaving his body. Then, like tuning a radio, he should try to consciously "scan" and "distinguish" the information streams flooding his mind, identifying the continuous, meaningless "background noise" (such as distant wind sounds, constant electromagnetic hum) and mentally labeling them as "ignore," practicing pushing them into the background of his consciousness. At the same time, she guided him to try to capture "signals" that might have regularity or be related to what he was currently focusing on, allowing for selective attention.

This process was extraordinarily difficult for Excellence, full of frustration. The halo recorded by his Emotion-Visualization Device truly reflected his struggle: when information was overloaded, chaotic, dazzling colors would burst forth; when he tried to concentrate and control, a deep and tense Deep Blue would appear; and when he occasionally succeeded in entering a calm state, a soft and stable pearlescent white would emanate.

But with Su Mu and Evelyn's patient, continuous, and encouraging help, Excellence gradually got the hang of it. He began to learn that when he felt dizzy, instead of panicking, he would proactively walk to the window, close his eyes, take a deep breath, and focus his attention on a relatively singular natural sound like birdsong or the gurgle of a stream. He learned to treat those distant "natural radio" programs as background white noise, no longer trying to understand every "love song" or "weather report." Although he occasionally still made blunders, like mistaking a sudden gust of wind for an approaching alien fleet, at least he was no longer completely overwhelmed by the ocean of information and left in disarray as he was initially.

The turning point in his growth occurred on a stormy night. In the past, in such weather, Excellence would have already needed to wear the highest level of noise-canceling equipment and cower in his room, trembling. But this time, under the encouraging gazes of Su Mu and Evelyn, he decided to try to face it without relying on external tools, solely with the control he had gradually cultivated.

Outside the window, lightning flashed and thunder roared, and heavy rain poured down. Excellence sat cross-legged on the studio carpet, closed his eyes, and diligently practiced the methods Evelyn taught him. At first, the tremendous thunder and strong electromagnetic disturbances still shook his mind, and electric light flashed wildly in his head. But he didn't give up, repeatedly pulling his wandering attention back to his breathing, and repeatedly saying in his heart to those violent "signals," "I know you exist, but please be quiet."

Gradually, although the thunder was still deafening, the "lightning and thunder" scene in his mind began to diminish, transforming from an immersive disaster movie to something more like watching a movie with the volume turned up very high. He successfully established a thin, but truly existing, "psychological barrier" between himself and the turbulent natural information.

The next morning, the rain had stopped and the sky was clear. Excellence opened his eyes; although his face showed some fatigue, his eyes were filled with unprecedented excitement and a sense of accomplishment. He rushed out of the studio, found Su Mu and Evelyn who were preparing breakfast, and excitedly announced, "Squad Leader! Sister Evelyn! I think... I think I succeeded! Last night! Although it was still very noisy, I feel... I feel like I can... I can 'tune the channel'!"

He gesticulated wildly, "Like a radio knob! Although I can't completely turn off the power yet, at least... at least I can try to turn the knob, avoid those particularly noisy static channels, and find a... find a relatively quiet station to stay on! Or... or turn down the volume a bit!"

Su Mu and Evelyn looked at his heartfelt joy, as if he had overcome a major problem, and exchanged smiles, their hearts filled with relief and pride. This "Human Antenna," which had frequently malfunctioned, had finally begun to find a way to coexist peacefully with its unique receiving system, and even attempt to actively manage it, with the accompaniment of love and scientific guidance. The road ahead was still long, but at least he had bravely taken the most crucial first step.